Cheese Tempo
This strategy takes your accumulating pressure on the enemy to out-tech them after every attempt or response they make to your attack. Having your teammates take advantage of the pressure you're emitting and back you up is crucial as in this build, your defenses or in particular your army vs army confrontation will be very weak but the nuisances you cause can cause major damage such as throwing a wrench into their plans of a barracks to soldiers army for map control; to straight up destroying command centers extremely early on. Opening Better for 3v3's, 4v4's, and 5v5's; Your role is to harass the enemies as much as possible. Economy is not your #1 priority, that should be your allies'. You should only make PPs with the exception of a NP at you or your ally's CC. On bigger maps, it is YOUR job to contest and seize control of the supercrystal in the middle or better yet, the enemy team's supercrystal. SNIPER HARASSMENT * In 3v3's, 4v4's, or 5v5's; after placing a plant in your own crystal, rush 1 soldier for an''' aggressive '''supercrystal takeover. Scatter '''the soldiers you start off with in as many different crystals as you can aswell, '''this will be important later on. If this is a naval map DO NOT use your construction soldier for a shipyard. * After placing a plant on the supercrystal, immediately put up a fort when you can afford to. This fort will not only secure your control of the supercrystal but you can make jeeps for the next steps. * It would be preferable if your teammates make the barracks but its not that detrimental if they don't. Create 4 Snipers from the barracks. Snipers are absolutely cancer to soldier based armies. These snipers will straight up erase any potential for an early soldier army that the enemy may make. * This is where you make the jeep. Using the fort you made earlier, Create 1 Jeep. '''The jeep perfectly fits the 4 snipers you made and with proper micro management it will make your snipers nearly invincible from the enemy's slower soldiers. Exploit your greater speed to pick off and wither the enemy's army of soldiers. * Remember this is all about '''tempo. Remember the soldiers you scattered out? This will take a little bit of micro management; while you are distracting and harassing the enemy with your snipers, build up your economy by constructing PPs at the crystals you had the soldiers you start off with stationed at. * After a comfortable amount of income, all you need is 1 research center to research artillery as this guide is not artillery based and you are not in a rush. Also research a nuke in case the game gets to that point. * Of course the enemy team would rarely be stupid enough to stay with soldiers and move onto tanks to counter your snipers as snipers cannot target tanks. However, you already planned for this. Your economy and if anything, your ally's economy should be greater than the enemy's to move onto your next tech after snipers. * Congrats, now the enemy team needs to adapt to you and rush tank tech. Their efforts are all onto countering YOU, but not your allies. * After your teammates make a confident army and the enemy had fully '''devoted to tanks, you can sell all your units to '''max out light soldiers '''but hear me out. * Despite '''light soldiers being very fragile '''and '''weak they are incredibly fast. Faster than heavy soldiers if they choose to restart their soldier production and definitely faster than tanks. They are REALLY cheap too. You can quickly pump out max light soldiers and go around attacking plants and quickly retreating due to your superior speed. Thus you are not giving your opponent any breathing room as they just played themselves making sluggish slow tanks. PROXY BASE (EXPLOSIVE TANKS) * Build '''an '''airport at your cc safe from any attack, or use an ally's airport. As soon as it's done, Create 1 Helicopter. This helicopter will be crucial to your next step. * Your allies should have a big enough army to deter any aggression from the enemy team or to start harassing them themselves. You have fulfilled your early-mid game role. ''hurray!'' you created breathing space for your allies to build up with no contest due to your harassment of the enemy team. * Create a Construction Soldier '''or if it's a Naval map use the one you start off with. '''Garrison the Construction Soldier with your Helicopter and wait until you have $500. * Stealthily '''infiltrate a '''inaccessible cliff near the enemy team's CCs. The closer the better. Drop your Construction Soldier '''and '''Create a Construction Yard on the cliff, CLOSE '''to the middle so its safe from targeting by ground units. * '''IMMEDIATELY '''construct a '''Headquarters and a Fort next to your construction yard. Now you are safe from any aerial assault by the enemy team and your geography protects you from ground assault. The fort will provide you artillery right outside the enemy team's base. * Construct Barracks and Tank Factory '''next to your sneaky settlement. You can notify your allies of the location of your proxy base and build their army there if they want. * One big '''weakness of tanks is that they are excruciatingly slow. Since your tank factory is right next to their base, it eliminates any preparation the enemy team can make for your tanks as they don't have to travel across the map. * Create 3 Heavy Tanks + 3 Explosive Tanks. '''Explosive tanks are underrated. 3 Explosive tanks are strong enough to completely level a CC. $180 for a $400 deficit and inability to use allied buildings is an extremely good trade. The 3 Heavy tanks are used to '''tank '''for your explosive tanks. * In 3v3's, 4v4's, 5v5's, the enemy bases are no joke. Multiple command centers will '''shred '''through your units despite them being tanks. You will need some micro management here. '''Position your Heavy Tanks '''to be '''infront of the explosive tanks where they will draw aggro '''from the CCs. While the CCs are targeting your Heavy Tanks '''have your Explosive Tanks follow them in and send them all into the closest CC. * Congrats, now the enemy team needs to adapt to you yet again and focus on defense. Their efforts are all onto countering YOU, but not your allies. PROXY BASE (ARTILLERY) * You should attack them with heavy tanks + explosive tanks until they put all their efforts into blowing up your explosive tanks before they get to the CC or until your artillery tech is researched. * Using the fort you had made, max out artillery. Only their planes can reach your artillery. * If the enemy does not have planes, go and have a field day on their base. But if they do, max out anti air soldiers or have a few heavy tanks to tank for your artillery. DO NOT DROP OFF THE CLIFF AND HAVE YOUR ARTILLERY POKE FROM A SAFE DISTANCE. '''Construct anti air turrets at your proxy base if you have to. * '''Congrats, now the enemy team needs to adapt to you yet again and rush plane/space tech. Their efforts are all onto countering YOU, but not your allies. DEADBOLT * If the game hasn't ended by now its now one of those games where it had hit deadbolt. Basically that its gone to the point where its really frustrating to close out and you cannot decide if winning this game was worth 90 minutes of your life. Good thing you researched nukes. * Before you even hit deadbolt you should of Constructed a Nuclear Silo. * Instead of nuking their base, try to nuke their army. Usually the cause of a deadbolt is when both teams have too strong of an army. Your artillery can take care of structures, not armies. A good tactic to bait the enemy into standing still for your nuke is to engage in a premature fight with your allies. * If anything, Create a fleet of motherships to additionally have them tank for your artillery or attack with your allies. Pros * Enemy team will not expect such openings. * Disgustingly effective at structure demolition. * Your allies will greatly appreciate the pressure you put. * Your allies will have greater tech/armies than the enemy. * Your allies economies will be safer. * Can be played while behind. Cons * Weak army vs army. * Hard to attack PPs with build path. * You are sacrificing your own economy for your allies. * Expensive opening. Counters + Solutions Snipers cannot attack air/tank units. If your enemy rushes them you're in trouble. However, this means the enemy is more defenseless and if your allies rushed soldiers, the enemy should not have an army to contest considering how expensive tank and air units are early on. Experienced players will notice your helicopter and immediately catch on to that dangerous scheme of your's. If they have planes, intercepting your helicopter will be annoying. If they managed to catch you the first time, try again when you have a fleet of planes to escort your helicopter. On 3v3/4v4/5v5 Maps where an ocean divides your team, skip and replace snipers with max heavy soldiers and protect naval invasion attempts until you can perform the "proxy base". You can comment down any concerns and I'll give the solution to them. Conclusion The strategy involves you throwing the cheesiest tactics at your enemies and wasting all their resources for the current problem while you are developing the next cheesy obstacle to throw back at them. This continuous ramping of pressure will hit them by surprise with steps each supported by the previous step hence the "Tempo" in the title. You shouldn't worry too much when the enemy builds to counter you, after all its what you're after. It sets them back when they try to deal with your shenanigans. Compared to your allies, the enemy team is losing value. This strat is however not as favored in 2v2v2's as it involves too much set up for one particular team when the other team can take advantage of you and attack you. To make up for this you can skip proxy bases and ''maybe ''snipers. you can still fort up a crystal but your economy will be severely behind to defend your other plants and having ''only one ''ally will be difficult to defend with. Explosive Tanks are still optimal though and are even tanky enough by themselves without heavy tanks to rush a CC considering there is only one CC. But when they have extra defenses, you can substitute heavy tanks with light tanks as they are tanky enough to tank for your explosive tanks. Despite how much value you get for spending $20 for an upgrade to heavy tanks, you are not using the light tanks vs army. That is not the point of the tanks. They are to be used to help your explosive tanks get their jobs done. Category:Strategy